World+Soccer-World+Standing

Kelley Hundley and Deborah Lawson media type="custom" key="4856691" align="center" || ||
 * || =World Soccer-World Standing=

Click here for the prototype Website (still under construction)

Overview


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Who will win the World Cup? Who will you be cheering for in the World Cup? What will happen in the world while the World Cup is being played? Play World Soccer-World Standing and you will be looking at world current events while paying close attention to the excitement of FIFA's World Cup Soccer play-off tournament.======

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Players will look closely at the political arena, economic situation, and soccer statistics for each of the participating countries, as they predict the answers to questions challenging them to make their best educated guess about future events.======

Instructional Objective
This game engages the learner by offering the World Cup platform. The design team hypothesized that the true soccer fan of the target age is more interested in the sport than the country itself. The goal is for the game to open the eyes of the // futbol // fan to the fact that these players (and their fans) come from countries with real political, economic, and team issues.

The learners/players will learn that all nations have a unique history that has shaped its people since its beginning. A country's politics, economics, religion, social, issues, intellectual movements, and even geography have given its people their own culture and defined who they are on this planet. The designers hope to reveal that all of the above mentioned influences are what make a population essentially happy, thereby loyal and enthusiastic about its team being represented at an international tournament, or, sad, whereby, the nation stands little chance of winning a trophy for the population back home that is disinterested.

Students in their junior and senior years of high school are enrolled in World History and studying CA standards 11.9.1 and 11.9.3 that focus on the formation of the United Nations and the events then surrounding the Cold War and 11.4.4 and 11.4.6 that studies the event before and after World War II. This is interesting to note because the players will have a recent knowledge of the events that kept England, primarily from participating the in the World Cup tournaments because of ill feelings towards the nations with which it had been at war.

Learners
The game is designed for students of any age who have a passion for soccer and interest in the various countries that participate in the FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament.

Context of Use
The game would be used at school or at home. Since the target audience for the game is high school students who are using their recent knowledge of world affairs, the design team would assume that the teacher would introduce the game to his or her students as a requirement or perhaps an extra credit assignment. Otherwise, players may simply play the game at home from their own computer or smartphone application. Wherever the game is played, a broadband internet connection would be ideal as the player would need to login into the game site and manually monitor his or her predictions and score.

The game can be played more than once, however, the length and how often it can be played is quite unique. The World Cup Soccer tournament is only offered every four years // and the tournament lasts for one month //.

Prior to the game, a player and his or her competitors would need to find out how FIFA has ranked the qualifying teams. Once those ten teams are identified, the players of this egame are to choose the teams they wish to follow for the remainder of the international soccer season.

After the game, the person with the most accurate prediction is declared the winner.

Scope
Considering the length of time needed and the vast differences in what content will be included to play, the design team members agree it will be a big game. The Welcome/login page will state the objective of the game and invite the player/learner to create an account. From there will be a link to another page that will include the links to various reputable sites where the learner/player will go to gather information what team he or she would like to play with for the tournament.

Object of the Game
The object of the game is to accumulate points based on the accuracy of prediction that the player/learner makes on hypothetical, but potential, solutions to problems that surround the politics, economics and team statistics of the country they chose.
 * 1) The player/learner (hereafter referred to as the player) accesses the website World Soccer-World Standing.
 * 2) The player commits to one top ten soccer team that has been ranked by the FIFA organization.
 * 3) The player will review the questions that have already been posed regarding his or her country of choice.
 * 4) The player will research the web or print resources to formulate an educated guess to the questions posed.
 * 5) The player will submit the answer on the World Soccer-World Standing website before the prescribed "due date".
 * 6) For every question answered correctly, meaning the answer choice corresponds closest to the actual solution reported in the news, the player accumulates one point.
 * 7) The player with the most points by July 11, the end of the FIFA tournament, is declared the winner and gets the bragging rights of such an accomplishment.

Competing Products
Fantasy Football  or Fantasy Socccer are fantasy sports games in which participants (called "owners") are arranged into a competitive league, earning “fantasy points” by using the statistics of real football players.

Death Game was developed in 1971 as a "dead pool" where contestants predict the death of a famous person within the upcoming year.

Educated Guess was born in the SDSU EdTech Department in 1995. This game, which has been discontinued, was a predictive contest game with categories similar to World Soccer-World Standing. Its final round, played in 1998, had 128 entries from teams at schools around the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

3rd World Farmer is a simulation game that opens players' eyes to the harsh realities of third world struggles.

//Universal Elements//
The look of the game will be designed around the idea of multi-colored flags of the countries participating in the World Cup Soccer Tournament. There will be the flags of the FIFA ranked teams towards the top of the page, a widget to show what team has won on any given day, and perhaps quick links to news surrounding the tournament, or host country, which happens to be South Africa this year (2010). The team would like to have a fun, cartoonish graphic title to the game to peak the interest of all ages, and to add sense of playfulness to the experience. However, the questions involved denote some sense of serious as questions regarding international politics, economics, and team statistics are the focal point of playing the game.

The categories are as follows:

 * ** Politics ** - Essentially these questions will surround the idea of who is charge of the country. Perhaps there are political party disputes in the Parliament, an election campaign that deserves special attention, an attempted coup that has taken place, a court decision that has a population up in arms, or the like.
 * ** Economics ** - The questions posed here are one that surround a country's financial affairs. A nation's GDP or unemployment rate will have significant effects on the nation's prosperity. Given the recent global recession, a player is sure to find some bit of news on this so her or she can effectively predict the outcome of a question posed from the game.
 * ** Team Statistics ** - To keep the game fresh and engage the interest of the true sports fan, the game will ask questions about the choice country's team statistics such as FIFA ranking, team goals scored, recent injuries or World Player nominees.

Sample questions (using Spain as an example):
====// I n 2006 Catalonia was granted a new autonomy charter, gaining control over judicial, infrastructure and other issues and an indirect proclamation of Catalonia being a nation. Conservatives immediately challenged the charter, and Spain's highest court is now believed to be close to issuing a verdict. How will the court rule?//====
 * ==== Political Question sample ====

//**A.** The entire charter will be struck down.
 * B.** Parts of the charter will be struck down, other parts upheld.
 * C.** Catalonia will be declared an independent nation.
 * D.** The entire charter will be upheld.//


 * Social Question sample



//How will Spain’s high unemployment issue be resolved?// //** A. ** Contracts will continue to be broken until the recession that Spain has found itself in recently has come to an end.
 * B. ** Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will succeed in cutting the unemployment rate by shortening the workers’ hours.
 * C. ** Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will raise taxes.
 * D. ** The socialist nation will invest in innovation and competitive markets, thereby, curtailing workers’ rights. //

Screen #1 - Welcome Screen to login, create account, or get directions.**
 * Sample screens showing the sequence of question asking, learner input, and feedback.


 * Screen #2 - Directions for play**

Screen #3 - Player's personalized screed for note-taking and links to country's news highlights


 * Screen #4 - Player's quiz screen for the educated guesses**

Motivational Issues

 * Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:** The game connects World Cup soccer fans with other fans, fulfilling human needs on the third level of Maslow's pyramid. The feeling of accomplishment, fulfilling needs on the fourth level, will be two-fold for the successful player: first, when the team they have selected wins, and second, when the guesses the player makes prove to be correct.


 * Loyalty: ** There is sure to be loyalty to the player's country of choice. In the designers' districts, there is high Latino population and // futbol // is a major interest of our students. Chivas and the Mexican soccer team has a huge following here in Orange County. Students would be able to express their loyalty to their team, while learning more about the political and economic conditions in the country. A stronger connection with the home country of the extended family should be the result.


 * Individual Motivations:**
 * **Challenge:** While a particular team may be highly ranked, the actual outcome of the tournament is still uncertain. In the egame, intrinsic motivation will be stimulated by the presence of multiple levels of goals. Correctly predicting the winner of the World Cup will be one level, but correctly guessing the answers to questions about events that have yet to unfold will be another level, requiring knowledge and reasoning skills.
 * **Curiosity:** A moderate level of informational complexity will be contained in the questions about the countries. Since the topic should be one in which the learner is already interested (either the soccer team or the country itself), motivation will be enhanced.


 * Interpersonal Motivations: **
 * ** Competition: ** The actual competition occurring on the playing field during the World Cup will be the background for the competition in the egame. Since this is a contest game, players will compete for the title of "winner." Classes in schools choosing to participate can also compete against other classes and other schools. If the schools are from other countries, this will expand the competition to a more global arena, like the World Cup.
 * ** Cooperation: ** Just as on a soccer team, players must learn to work together towards a common goal. If teachers make the egame a class assignment, teams can be formed within the class to formulate answers to the questions. Teams can then work cooperatively to research the background for the question that will enable them to make an educated guess.
 * **Recognition:** Social recognition of performance will be achieved by posting the weekly winner's names and points earned on the website.

The team first thoughts were to design a predictive game that would engage the learner into studying current world events. Data-driven decision-making is making its mark in classroom as of late, and since numbers don't lie, the team thought it would be an interesting trail to blaze to purport that the happiness of a country has a direct influence on the success of its World Cup soccer team. This was not intended to be a case study, but a simple prediction game, to tie a happy or unhappy population to a winning or losing FIFA ranked soccer team. However, when it seemed that the premise was a bit too complicated and hard to put in gaming and fun platform, the team decided to simply use the FIFA rankings as a decorative element to the "game". The players/learners will choose a country from the FIFA rankings and then commit to the study of that country based on a database of questions supplied by the game website.